It all started back in 2007, when a writer for The Boston Globe asked friends and family of Mitt Romney for some personal anecdotes about the former governor, then running for president.
One of the stories he heard — about a Romney family vacation back in 1983 — involved Romney putting the family’s Irish Setter, Seamus, in a crate they strapped on top of a station wagon for hours. This was actually illegal under Massachusetts law, as a Fox reporter pointed out to Romney, who said “he didn’t know” it was prohibited.
Though the original story was presented as an example of the “emotion-free crisis management” that Romney grew famous for in the business world, the idea of crating a dog on the roof of a car didn’t sit well with many dog owners.
With a little help from two former dogs, Scott Crider started the blog DogsAgainstRomney.com. Written in the voice of “Rusty,” a dog based on Crider’s own pets, the site tells the story of Mitt Romney’s “Crate-gate” and asks readers to get the message out that “putting a dog on the car roof is abuse.”
“It just struck me as something that is horribly cold and cruel to do to a pet,” Crider tells Cenk. “I’ve had dogs all my life, and I thought, how could anybody put a dog on the roof of their car? So I started this blog that night.”
Pet enthusiasts around the world answered Rusty’s call with one million hits in the site’s first 10 days. The story became a viral sensation back in 2007 — but that’s nothing compared to the attention it’s gotten in the past few months, inspiring a “Saturday Night Live” skit, a protest outside the Westminster Dog Show, an outraged comment from David Letterman, as well as a video from Robert Greenwald’s Brave New World films that features a very familiar TV host.
DogsAgainstRomney.com and its fans have followed Romney to events with large stuffed dogs stuffed in crates. Last week a protester was even pulled over when police mistook a rooftop prop for a real dog.
Finally, Cenk asked Crider if he would put Romney on the top of his car, to which he responded, “Yes, I would like to try, but I bet he wouldn’t get up there.”
